Gas Crisis is Over

UPDATE: "Paying at the pumps with a credit card is the longterm solution [to the gas crisis]," explained Bill Rich at the February 7th OCBA Civic Affairs meeting.

Ocracoke Station was not paying its bills for the fuel it received, which precipitated a temporary shutdown.

"The first thing we did as the county was to get two tanks over here for our EMS and fire trucks," Bill said. Bill also negotiated a deal with Wood Beasley, who owns the gas pumps, to install pay-at-the-pump credit card equipment. Beasley agreed to allow a percentage of the profits to apply toward the debit owed to him. Donnie Oden, who owns the building and property, and Sean Death, who owns the Ocracoke Station business agreed to the new policy, which will be in place for the foreseeable future.

The bad news is you can't pay inside and you can't pay with cash. The good news is that gas is available 24 hours a day, and most visitors are accustomed to paying at the pump anyway.

ORIGINAL POST: As of Friday evening, February 2nd, the pumps were running again. We got gas! The only way to use them is with a credit card at the pump; paying cash at the counter is not available.

I wonder if the AP will be as excited to report that gas has been restored. I read about our gas crisis on a news site from Oregon today. I hope they update their stories.